Toyo Ito is a creator of timeless buildings, who at the same time boldly charts new paths. His architecture projects an air of optimism, lightness and joy, and is infused with both a sense of uniqueness and universality. For these reasons and for his synthesis of structure, space and form that creates inviting places, for his sensitivity to landscape, for infusing his designs with a spiritual dimension and for the poetics that transcend all his works, Toyo Ito is awarded the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Ito began his career in the offices of Kiyonori Kikutake & Associates, one of the founders of the Metabolist movement, which sought to rebuild post-war Japan by drawing on the principles of biological growth to create an extensible cellular system of design and construction. Ito founded his own firm in 1971, beginning with residences like the Aluminum House in the Kanagawa Prefecture.

Sendai Mediatheque, photograph: Nacasa and Partners Inc.

This led to more complex and ambitious projects such as the 2001 Sendai Mediatheque, supported on a series of open steel tubes.

Sendai Mediatheque, photograph: Tomio Ohashi

On the exterior, each floor was its own unique finish. Read Ada Louis Huxtable's eloquent take on the building here.

The next year, Ito collaborated with engineer/architect Cecil Balmond to create the target="_blank" 2002 Serpentine Gallery in London's Kensington Park as a structured made from an algorithm of multiple interlocking iterations of a rotated cube.

Since
around the time I set up my own office in 1971, urban proposals such as
those made by the Metabolists are rarely seen. We are still in the
mode of introversion and abstraction. I think now is a good moment for
us architects to break away from this mode and regain a viable
relationship with nature.

Ito led the "Home for All" project to create a communal space for people who had lost their homes during the tsunami. The concept won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 2012 Venice Biennale.

About Me

. . . writings on architecture have appeared in the Chicago Reader, Metropolis Magazine, the Harvard Design Magazine, and the backs of discarded gum wrappers.
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